Setup A Bitcoin Lightning Node

Setup The OS

wget https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_lite_arm64/images/raspios_lite_arm64-2022-04-07/2022-04-04-raspios-bullseye-arm64-lite.img.xz

$ sudo apt install vim tmux
$ sudo swapoff –all
$ sudo apt-get remove dphys-swapfile

Setup the Bitcoin Daemon

$ wget https://bitcoin.org/bin/bitcoin-core-22.0/bitcoin-22.0-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz
$ tar xf bitcoin-22.0-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz

sudo useradd -m bitcoin
sudo su bitcoin
cd && mkdir .bitcoin

vim /home/bitcoin/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf.

Set <USER_VALUE> and <PASS_VALUE>

server=1
daemon=1
testnet=0
txindex=1

# Connection Settings
rpcuser=<USER_VALUE>
rpcpassword=<PASS_VALUE>
zmqpubrawblock=tcp://127.0.0.1:18501
zmqpubrawtx=tcp://127.0.0.1:18502

# Raspberry Pi Optimizations
#dbcache=100
#maxorphantx=10
#maxmempool=50
#maxconnections=20
#maxuploadtarget=5000

exit
sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/bitcoind.service

[Unit]
Description=Bitcoin daemon
After=network.target

[Service]
User=bitcoin
Group=bitcoin
Type=forking
PIDFile=/home/bitcoin/.bitcoin/bitcoind.pid
ExecStart=/home/timo/bitcoin-22.0/bin/bitcoind -pid=/home/bitcoin/.bitcoin/bitcoind.pid
KillMode=process
Restart=always
TimeoutSec=120
RestartSec=30

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

sudo systemctl enable bitcoind.service

Attach storage

$ sudo lsblk -o UUID,NAME,FSTYPE,SIZE,LABEL,MODEL
$ sudo vim /etc/fstab

To mount after reboot

UUID=655e4bf5-ca88-462d-b0c8-d78aed3429d2  /mnt/usbdisk  ext4  errors=remount-ro 0   1

Place bitcoind’s directory onto the disk

# mkdir /mnt/usbdisk
# mount -a
# cp -aR /home/bitcoin/.bitcoin /mnt/usbdisk/
# rm /home/bitcoin/.bitcoin -Rf
# ln -s /mnt/usbdisk/.bitcoin /home/bitcoin/.bitcoin
# chown -R bitcoin:bitcoin /mnt/usbdisk/

Start bitcoind and sync the blockchain NOTE: To speed things up a LOT(!) sync the blockchain on your desktop PC

# systemctl start bitcoind

Setup and Configure LND

Download the latest release from https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/releases

wget https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/releases/download/v0.14.3-beta/lnd-linux-amd64-v0.14.3-beta.tar.gz
tar xf lnd-linux-amd64-v0.14.3-beta.tar.gz

$ sudo su bitcoin
$ cd
$ mkdir /home/bitcoin/.lnd
$ vim /home/bitcoin/.lnd/lnd.conf

The lnd config file. Replace <ALIAS_NAME> with the name of your lighning node and <COLOR_VALUE> with a hex color. For example lnd_node and #f8f8f8:

[Application Options]
#debuglevel=debug
#debughtlc=true
maxpendingchannels=1
alias=<ALIAS_NAME>
color=<COLOR_VALUE>
listen=0.0.0.0:9735
listen=[::1]:9736
externalip=2a00:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:cfa3

[Bitcoin]
bitcoin.active=1
bitcoin.mainnet=1
bitcoin.node=bitcoind

[Bitcoind]
bitcoind.rpcuser=<USER_VALUE>
bitcoind.rpcpass=<PASS_VALUE>
bitcoind.zmqpubrawblock=tcp://127.0.0.1:18501
bitcoind.zmqpubrawtx=tcp://127.0.0.1:18502

[autopilot]
#autopilot.active=1
#autopilot.maxchannels=5
#autopilot.allocation=0.6
autopilot.active=true
autopilot.allocation=0.9
autopilot.minchansize=182817
autopilot.maxchansize=682819
autopilot.maxchannels=50000

Get your external IP

$ wget -q -O- http://ipinfo.io/ip

The lnd systemd service file:

$ sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/lnd.service

[Unit]
Description=Lightning Network daemon
Requires=bitcoind.service
After=bitcoind.service

[Service]
PIDFile=/home/bitcoin/.lnd/lnd.pid
ExecStart=/home/timo/lnd-linux-amd64-v0.14.3-beta/lnd
Restart=always
RestartSec=60
User=bitcoin
Group=bitcoin
Type=simple

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

$ sudo systemctl enable lnd.service
$ sudo systemctl start lnd.service
$ systemctl status lnd.service

Using lnd

$ cd ~/lnd-linux-amd64-v0.14.3-beta
$ sudo su bitcoin
$ ./lncli --help
$ ./lncli create
$ ./lncli getinfo
$ ./lncli newaddress np2wkh
$ ./lncli walletbalance

To unlock the wallet

$ ./lncli unlock
$ ./lncli listchannels

Using bitcoind

CPU mine to address (only for fun purposes)

./bitcoin-cli --rpcuser=<USER> --rpcpassword=<PASS> createwallet test
./bitcoin-cli --rpcuser=<USER> --rpcpassword=<PASS> getnewaddress
bc1q3hn9yj2vc3c30aqjvjhqenl4dut2az4kqqq5yu
./bitcoin-cli --rpcuser=<USER> --rpcpassword=<PASS> generatetoaddress 1 "bc1q3hn9yj2vc3c30aqjvjhqenl4dut2az4kqqq5yu"
./bitcoin-cli --rpcuser=<USER> --rpcpassword=<PASS>